


Seeking Perfection

by arysthaeniru



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26383810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysthaeniru/pseuds/arysthaeniru
Summary: Echizen chooses to go to a different school, and is pushed along a different path, pushed to evolve faster: both professionally and personally.Meanwhile, Sanada is trying his best to not lose his mind, and manage his friendships.
Relationships: Echizen Ryouma & Jackal Kuwahara, Echizen Ryouma & Marui Bunta, Sanada Genichirou & Yanagi Renji & Yukimura Seiichi
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in my WIPs and although I'm probably not going to finish it, it's actually quite good, despite having written it almost five years ago!!!

_Echizen_

Rikkaidai’s campus was large, forbidding and filled with chattering students who already knew each other from elementary school. But Echizen just shouldered his school stuff, and refused to be intimidated by it all. He had to remember that going to Rikkaidai was the biggest ‘fuck you’ he could give to his father while still remaining in good terms with his cousin and his mother. 

He had the grades for Rikkaidai and Rikkaidai was known as the best tennis team in Japan. If he was going to learn how to defeat his father, it was going to be here at Rikkai, not at the old school of his father. Following in the footsteps of Echizen Nanjirou would make him equal to his father, sure, but Echizen wanted to surpass his old man, to become the best tennis player that the world had. 

His mother had supported his decision, as she always did, and since Echizen Rinko was the money-winner in the family, her decision was final. His old man had complained loudly and frequently about Rikkaidai, but he’d still agreed to let Echizen go. 

It was a fairly lonely first week, as he drifted through the introductory lessons and the classes of students who were all new and didn’t care about the new boy from America so much, except when the teacher pointed it out during English class, and the eyes of 32 other people had focused on him with a beady intensity and he had been slipped at least twenty notes for requests of tutoring. 

He quickly found out that people hadn’t been kidding when they’d said that Rikkaidai was competitive. Already, people were forming cliques and study sessions and alliances between another, to see who would do what and who would take notes for what class. It was just the first week. For a school primarily focused on the arts and sports, it was quite bemusing to see their studies being taken with such intensity. 

Still, the schoolwork was only really a prelude to what Echizen was really anticipating: the tennis club. Club Day rolled around during the second week, and Echizen immediately signed off the appropriate details at the tennis club stall. It was, by far, the most crowded stall of the fair, but it was filled with tennis beginners who just wanted to be associated with Rikkai’s fame, if he listened to the other chatter correctly. 

When he signed down his name and handed the form to one of the senpai there, a tall boy with closed eyes shot him a calculating look, before nodding and dismissing Echizen to the crowd. He also signed up for library duty, as he had been in charge of back in California, but that was secondary to what he had really been waiting for. 

All of the first years were given a tour of the Rikkai tennis team facilities on the next day. There was a large, state-of-the-art gym for all of the athletes at the school, but was reserved for tennis players on Tuesdays and Thursday. There was both an indoors court and an outdoors court, which rotated and switched off on use between the girls team and the boys team. There were three different single meshed-off areas with a ball machine. And the best part was that the outdoor courts had large walls for individual practise against a target. It was a beautiful campus and Echizen couldn’t wait to utilize the facilities. 

First-years were expected to be picking up balls and practising their swings and serves, but practises were very uncoordinated, generally, as was explained by the senpai with pink hair. There were mandatory warmup laps, optional drill exercises and then about an hour of free time where people focused on what they were intending to get stronger at. It wasn’t ideal for teaching new students, Echizen mused, but then again, that wasn’t what Rikkai really wanted, was it? They wanted to make champions out of already good players, if their mantra of ‘always win’ was anything. 

The part that really drew Echizen’s attention though, was the monthly challenges. There were always opportunities once a month to challenge some of the senpai to play a match, and get considered for regulars. Even if the regulars lost, there was no guarantee that a pre-regular would get chosen for the regulars, but it gave a high chance of success. At any other point, there was no way that a pre-regular could play a match against the regulars, unless the regulars asked the pre-regulars. 

So Echizen breezed through schoolwork and spent most of his tennis club time practising his basic skills against walls and increasing his stamina and muscles in the gym. He’d heard rumours from most of the tennis club members about Yanagi Renji, the closed-eyes senpai who took data on people and used it around the club to give the regulars some advantages. Echizen didn’t want any real data on him, not until he played the match that would secure him a place on the winning team, so he only practised his complicated moves on his father at home, in their own tennis court, where he lost every time, but managed to perfect his moves against someone actively trying to undermine them. 

He had to do his homework on the train in the mornings and evening, because the long commute from Tokyo to Kanagawa reduced his free time, but it was worth it. He knew that he could beat the senpai.

The tennis club regulars were formidable, he could see that clearly from their practises, but he could beat them. The main person in charge was the tall imposing one, called Sanada. He was fukubuchou (which led to the question of where the buchou was, but Echizen didn’t like to talk to many of his peers and they didn’t really discuss the absence of the buchou where he could hear). Sanada’s playstyle was that of an allrounder, and while Echizen hadn’t actually seen him play yet; when Echizen had been training in the gym with him, he’d seen the strength with which Sanada applied himself, and mused there was probably a lot of powerplay involved in Sanada’s game. 

Yanagi Renji, who seemed to be a treasurer and other leader of practise, was a counterpuncher, seen by an initial match with Kirihara, but he relied a lot on his collection of data on his opponents. Echizen was fairly certain that if he surprised Yanagi enough in a match, he could defeat him quickly. Yanagi also would probably have less stamina than other players, as he declined to join in on running for most days, preferring to observe with his notebook or with Sanada. Perhaps he ran in his spare time, but Echizen wasn’t entirely sure that this would be the case, with how lanky he looked. 

Kirihara Akaya was an uncontrolled baseliner. He was very impulse-based and his playstyle was quite aggressive and was fairly easily defended against, if you went into a match expectant of his tactics. Still, Echizen had heard whispers about how Kirihara had sent national-winning OBs into hospital with the force of his playing when he reached Demon Mode. Echizen had no desire to be hospitalized and decided that facing off against him would have to come after seeing Kirihara’s Demon mode first-hand. 

Niou Masaharu was one half of the doubles-one pair, but he looked like a strong singles player also. He was as analytical as Yanagi, but in a different way. Yanagi used his observations to unnerve people as well as improve their game in the practise matches he’d been having against some others. Niou used his observations to make people weak and weaken them, inbetween points as they switched courts, or even when he was playing. He targeted people’s weak spots, both emotional and physical. He also had a wicked backhand. Echizen didn’t particularly think he was difficult to play, but it was a quite risky to think about playing against Niou in a show to prove his skills.

Yagyuu Hiroshi was the other half of doubles one and he seemed a little easier to play against. He was a power player, with fast hard shots, and he was a serve and volleyer, if his volleying rallies with Marui were a good indication. A good one, though, similar to the likes of Sampras and McEnroe, considering both his serve and volleys were strong. He didn’t seem to exploit weak points like Niou...but well, they had chosen each other for doubles. There had to be a reason for that, and Echizen didn’t want to find out for himself when he was counting on getting into regulars to be able to play against the country’s best players. 

Kuwahara Jackal was one hell of a counter-puncher and defensive opponent. His stamina and his ability to not give up a point was something that Echizen wasn’t poking with a ten-foot-pole. He didn’t seem to lose his temper, either, which meant that there was no way that Echizen could pull him into an attack, where Echizen could try to score points. There was little chance he could ever defeat Kuwahara without tiring himself out. Not yet. Once he had more stamina, perhaps, but not for this match.

Perhaps the easiest to battle was Marui Bunta, the other half of the secure doubles pairings. His skills were easily enough countered, just by the virtue of the time it took for the ball to do something along the net. Once the initial shock wore off, it was easy enough to counter, and there were some serious holes in Marui’s singles coverage of the court.

Thing was, everyone would be targeting Marui and Yagyuu, as the two weakest links of the team. It wouldn’t be particularly impressive if he could defeat either of them. Which meant his best chances of winning and still looking very competent, were against Yanagi and Kirihara. Of the two, Echizen was choosing Yanagi, someone who had the least unknowns surrounding him. 

Which was why, a month later, as Yanagi read out the announcement of the challenges matches after the warmup laps and all the pre-regulars started scattering, Echizen walked straight up to Yanagi. “Will you play a match with me, senpai?” he asked, evenly, as he garnered quite a few looks from the others who had generally not paid him much attention. 

Yanagi just nodded, with an expectant look. “Of course. Would you like to play indoors or outdoors?”

“Doesn’t matter.” said Echizen, with a shrug, as he tossed his racket over his shoulder, casually. Yanagi just smiled again and started walking towards one of the outdoor courts, handing his clipboard to Niou as he went. 

He could hear mutters from the pre-regulars about how this was going to be a slaughter from Yanagi, but Echizen was certain of his own victory. “Rough or smooth?” he called to Yanagi, as the other pulled off his track-bottoms, but left his jersey zipped up. 

“It’ll be your serve.” said Yanagi, as he unzipped his rackets. 

“Rough or smooth?” asked Echizen again, ignoring the words from before. He preferred to leave it to luck, rather than someone else’s mercy. “Smooth.” called Yanagi, with a shrug. The racket spun and landed rough. Echizen’s serve. 

So Yanagi started the mental assault before the match even started, no wonder other people were afraid and fell into Yanagi’s trap.

But the thing was, if you had enough mental conviction, Yanagi’s game was just physical and that was always easier to deal with. Gripping the racket in his right hand, Echizen launched into a normal slice-serve, with a high speed, that Yanagi easily returned, without even breaking a sweat. It continued for some time, but Echizen won the first two games with ease, just like every other player that had ever faced off against Yanagi. He was still calibrating, and Echizen refused to let himself get complacent now. 

As expected, in the third game, Yanagi started properly playing and their rallies became long and excruciating. Echizen was running everywhere, in order to follow Yanagi’s predictions to a T. He was grateful that Yanagi said his predictions before Echizen had started to move, which made it easy to pretend that Yanagi’s predictions were actually accurate. In some cases, they really were accurate predictions about Echizen’s movements, but in some cases, they were based on false ideas about how much Echizen could move across the court and how long his grip was. 

It was difficult to not use his split-step, twist serve or even his double-handed play, but he had to wait until he was down and until Yanagi was sufficiently convinced in his victory to start slipping up. It didn’t happen until Yanagi was at 5-2. And that was Echizen’s serve. He reached up and launched a quick and fast twist serve. Yanagi’s eyes shot open at the shot, and though he returned it, it was a lob, that Echizen quickly smashed down, where even Yanagi’s long legs couldn’t reach in time. 

There were murmurs from the pre-regulars who had been starting to leave the match, deciding that Yanagi’s victory was imminent. All of them had stopped now and stared quite coolly at Echizen, who was breathing heavily. He could do this. The twist serve wasn’t a difficult shot for someone like Yanagi, who played Kirihara, who used that serve frequently, and other, more violent body-aiming techniques. 

“So you’re finally playing seriously.” said Yanagi, calmly. “Show me your best, Echizen-kun.”

He’d known that Echizen wasn’t playing to his full form? Then...was Yanagi losing on purpose? No! He couldn’t care. If he was purposefully losing, it wasn’t Echizen’s problem. He couldn’t let himself get overwhelmed by Yanagi’s mindgames, Yanagi wanted Echizen to doubt himself. And honestly, Echizen’s own arrogance was beyond Yanagi’s imagination. He hadn’t given anything away about his special skills. 

He started moving faster, reaching further and using his split step freely, to cover more of the court. His tiring body somehow found the strength to put more effort into his shots, to create a power that would make countering the shots, even more of a challenge. There was muttering from everyone as he played, a low frequency that he ignored in favour of the thrill of the game. 

It wasn’t until a particular difficult shot, that Echizen pulled out one of his best prepared tricks, and switched the racket to his left hand, to return the otherwise tricky backhand shot, into a simple forehand. There were gasps from everyone and he heard quite a few mutters of ‘Nitoryu’ from people behind him. This had been difficult to conceal, and writing all of his homework with his right hand in school, had been a pain to do, but it was worth it to see the frankly-shocked expression on Yanagi’s face. 

The game was 5 all, and Echizen reached upwards to serve with his left-hand, generating more speed and topspin. “You’re ambidextrous.” said Yanagi, letting the ball past him without resistance. “With a leaning to your left hand.”

Echizen just smirked. “Why? You couldn’t tell, senpai?” he demanded, as he launched into another serve. Yanagi actually reached for this one, but the doubt of his data being wrong was clearly playing on his face. It was easy to pull the game to finish at a comfortable 7-5, and Echizen practically dived for his waterbottle, after the final shot. It hadn’t been an easy match and next time, he would not have any of the advantages that he’d had for this match.

Yanagi came up to him and held out his hand, with a slight smile. “Good game, Echizen-kun.” he said, as he rolled his jersey sleeves up. Echizen just blinked. Yanagi was still wearing wrist-weights. And ankle-weights too, under his socks. Echizen had ditched those around the fourth game. Had Yanagi really been holding out on him? Thrown the match? But for what purpose?

Those thoughts ran through his head shakily, as he held out his hand for Yanagi to shake. “It was fun, senpai.” he said, with a cocky grin. “If you want to get thrashed again, you know who to come to.”

“Go cool down!” yelled Sanada, from the sidelines of watching Yagyuu slaughter one of the second-year pre-regulars with a shot that Echizen could only just see and the second year clearly didn’t even notice. It had been a good choice to choose Yanagi, it would have taken quite a few games in order for his visual acuity to be able to catch up to Yagyuu’s shots. 

“Come on.” said Yanagi, as he pulled off his jersey and they started to jog around the courts.

They completed around ten laps in companionable silence, as Yanagi’s eyes stayed on the two matches playing, until Echizen finally gained the proper lap pace to speak up. “You threw the match on purpose. You could have played better.”

“So can you.” said Yanagi, evenly. “The son of Echizen Nanjirou is indeed as talented as his reputation goes. I’d be a fool to pass up the opportunity to have you as a first-year reserve, at least. Sanada doesn’t see it that way, however, He needed to see you beat someone convincingly to even think about regular status. It was just my luck that you chose to play me, today.”

Echizen tossed Yanagi a baleful look. “...you calculated that I would choose you. Because of the mixture of pride and common sense that went into my decision.”

Yanagi just laughed, as they finished their laps, leisurely. “You’re sharp. You have lots of potential. But your style is a copy of your father’s and you are not your father, Echizen Ryoma. Find your own game and you’ll be better than everyone here, including Sanada.” He smiled, before going to watch Niou’s match against some unfoundedly-cocky third-year. 

Echizen just gritted his teeth and headed for the locker room to get a snack. He was exhausted and he hated being patronized. Still, he wanted to rematch Yanagi, now, and get better, to show his senpai how much he would regret downplaying his abilities. 

_Sanada_

The problem with being on the Morality Council for Sanada, was that he had to attend meetings after school, and even while taking the place of their last lesson of the day, the meeting still managed to run over into tennis time. At least Yanagi was always on time and the team knew that they had to run the amount of laps he’d written on the board. From there, if he still didn’t arrive, Yanagi would assign drills and then let them go for normal practise.

Which was why it was extremely strange when Morality Council actually finished on time and he got to the locker rooms at the same time as everyone else, in time to see Yanagi hand Echizen a Regular’s Jacket from the closet. It was Echizen’s exact size. 

Sanada rolled his eyes slightly, as he started getting changed and Yanagi opened his own next locker next to Sanada’s. “You’ve had that jacket in preparation for two weeks, Renji.” said Sanada, evenly. “Were you so sure he was going to defeat you?”

Yanagi just smiled cryptically as Sanada neatly folded his trousers. “It had a high possibility of happening and Echizen surpassed even my high expectations. He’ll be good for this team.”

With a skeptical shrug, Sanada tugged off his school shirt and tie. “We’ll see about that.” Honestly, he had doubts about anyone joining the team without Yukimura’s express approval and yesterday had been too busy and crowded to go and visit his captain in Kanai, to ask about Echizen’s appointment to the Regulars. It made him uneasy that Echizen was receiving the jacket without Yukimura’s own hands giving it to Echizen.

“You’re acting-captain, now.” said Yanagi, softly, cutting through Sanada’s thoughts, accurately, as he picked up his own tennis bag to dump outside. “We can make decisions without him, you know. We do make decisions without him. Life goes on.”

Sanada adjusted his cap on top of his hair. “He’s always been a better judge than me.”

Yanagi just shot Sanada a cutting glance, as they both went outside to start up laps. “Stop selling yourself short, Genichirou. You’re better than you tell yourself.”

Sanada was quiet to that, as he glared at a few stragglers to keep up with the pace he was setting. Jackal yelled down the line and the group solidified a little more.

“...more than for me, it’s for him. said Sanada, quietly. “He’s dying in there, Renji. He wants us to need him. And I can’t pretend about my daily life. It’s easier to pretend about tennis or leadership. I ask him things and...you don’t get it, you don’t see the way his face lights up, Renji. He wants to be necessary and valid in our lives, not someone we have to make time in our schedule for.”

Yanagi frowned, looking disconcerted. “Downplaying my own experiences with Seiichi is an argumentative fallacy, don’t do it. Sensei will rip you apart if you do that in her class. As for that, I’m not stupid, I see how much he needs us. But you need to be able to say ‘ _I’ve done this, do you approve?_ ’ rather than ‘ _I don’t know what I’m doing, tell me._ ’ The latter indicates incompetence, not a second opinion on a decision. He’ll just get more frustrated about not being here.”

Sanada gritted his teeth together, swallowing his retort as Niou and Yagyuu started to edge ahead of his and Yanagi’s pace. He waited until they were a safe distance away before speaking up again, with a little more care and a little less annoyance. “I’ve tried the first. He just gets depressed that we didn’t need him in the first place.” he said, with a slightly more tempered tone of annoyance.

Yanagi sighed, as Jackal also started to pull ahead for their final laps. “You need to master inbetweens. Not everything can be so solid and concrete. You need to find an inbetween between ‘ _we don’t need you_ ’ and ‘ _we’re hopeless without you_ ’. And before you ask about why I’m not doing anything, I am. But you are his oldest friend and his fukubuchou. He needs to feel it from you, not me.”

Sanada growled frustratedly, as they finished their laps. “It’s just...never good enough.” he muttered, darkly, before raising his voice. “Everyone’s dismissed to follow your own activities! If I catch you slacking off, there will be consequences!”

“Because he entrusted the team to us. To you. You're capable of bearing this, Genichirou.” murmured Yanagi, with a slight shrug, as he drifted off towards Jackal. 

But that hadn’t been what–!? Sanada sighed lowly. It wasn’t supposed to be normal to want to throttle someone who was supposedly your best friend every other minute, was it? But lately, life had just been one big haze of rage and too much work for even Sanada’s shoulders. He would never complain and he’d die before refusing any of the work, but sometimes, he got tired as well. 

“You look exhausted, fukubuchou.” said Niou, with an impassive look. “Have you tried sleep, or are you like a robot and don’t do it?” 

“Niou...” growled Sanada, not turning around to look at Niou, as he turned his gaze to the courts where people were slowly grabbing their rackets and stretching out after their run.

“Seriously, you look like hell warmed over. What the hell are you even doing?” asked Niou, walking out in front of Sanada’s glare with a raised eyebrow. “Yagyuu agrees with me. He just won’t say it to your face, because he’s polite and that shit.”

“Language.” said Sanada, tersely, as he crossed his arms over his chest and made himself look taller than Niou. 

“Like you really give a shit about my language outside of class.” said Niou, coolly, quirking his eyebrows. “Look, just don’t die, because two people from this team in hospital would suck. Just saying.”

Was that concern from Niou? Probably. Sanada just grunted, and paused as something caught his attention. Niou noticed his expression change and also whirled around, before chuckling as he caught sight of what Sanada had seen. “Damn, Bakaya’s already got into the new kid. Is he allowed to ask for a match?”

“Technically yes.” said Sanada, with a fierce scowl. After all, they were in the same club and this was free-practise-time. But they had both played intensive matches the day before. Kirihara had faced off against three pre-regulars, and Echizen’s match against Yanagi had left the younger boy in rivulets of sweat. It seemed foolhardy, especially with Kirihara’s penchant for injuring promising players.

Still, Echizen was quick to accept and there were pre-regulars from other courts who were definitely slacking off on their own practise to watch the game. Sanada couldn’t outrightly ban a match from happening between regulars, anyway, even if he had his misgivings. “Get to work!” he yelled over to them and they started into their drills with a start, evidently fearful of getting slapped. 

“You too, Niou.” sad Sanada, with a stern look to Niou who seemed to be in the process of wandering over to the court where Kirihara had started the first serve. “You’re scheduled for forehand practise. Your backhand can only go so far.”

That was definitely a cajoling look from the other teen. Who did Niou think Sanada was? He wasn’t going to be swayed by anything like that. “Go.” he barked. “Unless you want to play a match against me.”

Niou actually perked up at that and grinned. “Go one with me, Sanada.” he said, with a grin. 

No one other than Atobe and Yukimura genuinely enjoyed playing him. Even Yanagi found it difficult to play Sanada. Niou, in particular, hated to be pushed like that without a ‘real’ purpose like an official match (he was a binge-studier, as well), which made this apparent enthusiasm quite confusing.

At least, until Sanada noticed that the only free court was next to Echizen and Kirihara’s match. He glared at Niou, as he stalked down the hill to the courts. “For every shot you miss that you could have gotten in your prime condition, you’ll run twenty laps.” he said, as he removed his own racket from his bag. 

“Fine with me.” agreed Niou, waving to Yagyuu, Yanagi and Jackal who were doing accuracy drills against the wall. Surprisingly, Niou gave the game his all, and soon, Sanada was diving after shots, with a little bit of sweat. Niou wasn’t a physically demanding player, but his game was very strong and he angled his shots like Yanagi, to be as hard to reach as possible. Still, it wasn’t like Sanada was losing, either. 

As Sanada reached up into his serve, Niou completely missed it, his eyes locked onto the other court. Sanada glared at Niou, he’d been doing so well! He was on the verge of shouting, when a gasp from the pre-regulars behind Niou shocked him and he turned to look where Niou was staring.

Both Echizen and Kirihara were in Muga, glowing brightly as they served and played, Kirihara mimicking the tapes of Tezuka and the other Rikkai members, while Echizen played with the moves of many famous pro-circuit tennis players. Sanada decided that letting Niou’s laps slide would be okay for once.

“I think our game is done, Niou.” said Sanada, as he strode away from the court, stopping to place his racket against his bag, before he walked towards the entrance of Kirihara’s court. Niou didn’t protest the decision, just watching the game with honest surprise. 

Yanagi had stopped his practise as well, as he stared and watched the two players, hands curled around the wire fencing. “Don’t stop the game.” said Yanagi, as Sanada headed for the entrance of the court. “They’ll finish when they run out of stamina.”

Sanada was tempted to disagree, because getting out of Muga like that was painful. He’d learnt the hard way, back when he was Echizen’s age, but then again, that was only if you impacted the ground as hard as Sanada had upon fainting. “Fine. Help me catch them when they do fall, or we’ll not have enough players for the Districts.” he said, as he crossed his arms across his chest and watched them.

“Echizen plays too much like his father.” said Yanagi, quietly, his frown increasing. “He relies too much on other players. Even in Muga, Akaya’s style of play shines through, but Echizen’s game is the same as Samurai Echizen.”

Sanada watched him closely. He’d seen the tapes of the Samurai’s matches, everyone had. The one true hope for Japan before he’d suddenly retired, evidently to raise his child. And the child played exactly like the Samurai. “Is this hampering his ability to win matches?” he asked, calmly, as he watched Echizen slam a shot past Kirihara. 

“No. He’ll win.” Yanagi said, clearly wanting to say something else. Sanada cut across him.

“Then, it isn’t our problem. If he wins, he wins. We can deal with the consequences later. Winning is the only important thing, right now.” That was the rule of Rikkai now. 

Yanagi frowned, angrily. “Genichirou. We have to help him improve. Look where focusing only on victory got us with Akaya! It’s our duty as senpai.”

“We’ve ruined Akaya’s playstyle. What does it matter if we ruin another?” asked Sanada bitterly. 

Yanagi was definitely about to say something more, but they both turned away from their argument, as the glow started to fade a little. The match had ended in Echizen’s favour and Sanada immediately strode into the court, just in time to catch Echizen before he fell. The younger boy’s weight was probably something to be worried about. He’d send Yanagi an email tonight about pulling up a training menu for him.

...if immediate victory without endangering health was possible, he supposed it was always the better option. but that didn’t seem like likely for either Kirihara or Echizen. It took too long to completely redefine your playstyle. 

Yanagi, at the other side of the court, had caught Kirihara and was smiling gently at the fallen teen. Sanada just sighed as pulled Echizen up and started to drag him towards the locker rooms. It really was good that the sign-up forms included phone-numbers of parents.


	2. Chapter 2

_Echizen_

Waking up at home, being unsure of exactly how he’d got there, had been a shitty experience. Finding out what had happened hadn’t particularly effective either, with his father complaining about ungrateful bouyas, schools that were too far away and not actually explaining anything of why circumstances had led to Nanako and his father carting him home like a sack of potatoes. Nanako had been even less help, as she’d gushed about Sanada-fukubuchou’s looks and how she wanted a husband like that. 

When Echizen had reminded her that fukubuchou was five years her younger, she’d shrugged. “Obviously I wouldn’t date _him_ , he’s like your age. Now, if he had an older brother...” And then she had winked at him, as if that wasn’t horribly gross. Echizen had been sure to express his discontent about her words and had retreated to the safety of his room, away from disgusting perverted elder cousins. 

And school hadn’t been much help either, as his fellow first-years just stared and whispered at him, like he was a zoo exhibit, so Echizen had just given up on getting a story out of anyone. The injuries were a pain in the neck, especially the large area of bruising on his stomach, which made stretching a little difficult, and the tiny cuts that made taking a shower tough, but since he had no idea what had happened, he decided it wasn’t worth his time to dwell on it. Nothing serious was wrong with him, so it was irrelevant. 

Still, as he started running laps during the morning practise, Kuwahara jogged up to his side, instead of running with Kirihara and Marui at the back, like he usually did. He wasn’t even panting as he reached Echizen’s breakneck pace. “How are you feeling today, Echizen-kun? Or would you prefer Ryoma? You’re from America right? It’s like Brazil, where we call each other by our first names?” he asked, cheerfully. 

Echizen blinked a little and breathed heavily to be able to muster the oxygen to speak. “Ryoma’s fine. And I’m doing okay...I feel good.” At Kuwahara’s worried expression, Echizen frowned. “Okay, but what happened yesterday, Kuwahara-senpai?”

Kuwahara just smiled. “Jackal-senpai, please. And you entered Muga no Kyochi and beat Akaya in a match.”

Muga no Kyochi? What the hell was that? By Jackal’s quick clarification, Echizen’s confusion must have shown on his face. “It’s, umm, in english, _State of Self-Actualization._ It’s basically that you start playing unconsciously and then pass out after using too much stamina.”

Echizen used some choice english to state exactly what he thought of it and Jackal burst out into laughter, drawing attention from the other regulars who stared at them with confusion. Echizen mused that nobody had really talked to him before, right? “No, no, it’s not as awful as it sounds.” said Jackal, with a grin. “You regurgitate whatever tennis moves you’ve ever seen in your life and you’re able to do them immediately. You become faster and move with more grace. But, it comes at the side-cost of sparkles and stamina.”

“It’s not like I have oodles of stamina to spare like you do, Jackal-senpai. That’s pretty useless.” said Echizen, as he panted out his words. “How do I get rid of it?”

“Well I’ve never got into Muga. I’m not that good.” Jackal laughed off, “You’d have to ask Sanada or Yukimura-buchou.”

Echizen almost perked up. There. A name for this mysterious buchou. Not that Echizen usually cared about missing members, but captains were usually the strongest of the team. Someone else to defeat. “Who’s Yukimura-buchou?” asked Echizen. 

Jackal’s face fell a little, his eyes falling to the ground. “Yukimura-buchou’s the captain of this team. He was last year’s captain, as well. He’s one of the only reasons we’ve been consecutively winning games...but currently he’s in hospital, for Myasthenia Gravis.”

Hospital, that mean that Echizen couldn’t play against him yet. How troublesome. “When’s he discharged?” asked Echizen, curiously. 

“He might never be.” said Jackal, grimly as he pulled away a little. Echizen frowned and made the mental note to not bring up the topic with the rest of the team either. Shame, he’d thought Jackal was quite nice, actually. It seemed pretty rare in this school. But Echizen had never been great at social interactions.

Besides, he wasn’t here to make friends. He was here to play tennis. 

He kept running once the required laps were done, ignoring the looks from everyone else as he did so. He needed to work on stamina, he’d seen that during his match with Yanagi. And if Muga no Kyouchi was something that sapped stamina, he’d need more stamina. It made sense. He scowled, tugged his hat down over his face and kept running, avoiding the outstretched leg from Kirihara.

The other boy looked sort of resentful, with a tinge of red to his eyes that hadn’t been there when he’d cockily asked Echizen to play him, and Echizen made a note to ignore him as much as humanely possible. Sore losers were never appreciated. 

He tripled the original warm-up laps distance before collapsing close to the entrance of the courts. Echizen just let himself lie there and feel how tired he was, with his eyes shut. When he got home, he’d try to play three or four games against his father and that would probably be a good enough stamina booster. A cold waterbottle was placed on his forehead and Echizen’s eyes opened.

The redhead, Marui, grinned at him, from where he was adjusting his wrist-weights. “Hydrate. Or else Yanagi gets mad. And a mad Yanagi never bodes well, because the guy’s otherwise unflappable.”

Echizen nodded and slowly pulled himself to his elbows, wincing at the feeling of his skin coming away from the tarmac and leaving imprints. “Thanks.” he said, quietly. 

“Don’t mention it. You’re a team-member now, right?” said Marui, with a grin and a flash of the victory sign by his eyes. 

Echizen just nodded as he cracked open the bottle and let the cold water run down his throat. It felt refreshing but it only furthered Echizen’s resolve to increase his stamina. 

Marui pulled a face as he looked at Echizen’s skinned elbows and aching legs. “You’re trying to increase your stamina, aren’t you?” he asked, as he leant against the fence. “You did way too many laps today. You’re supposed to take it slow, you know.”

Echizen just pulled a face and finished the waterbottle, tossing it aside, into the recycling bin closeby. He knew that, but he could hardly afford to take it slow. Not here. He was aiming for the top and victory never waited for you to get better. You had to pursue it, trap it and whack it over the head. “Whatever.”

“You’ve either got to eat lots and speed up your training regime quickly, or you’ve got to go slow.” Marui said cheerfully. “I bet you’ve already considered that though, so what’s left to ask is how much do you eat?”

Echizen frowned at Marui. What was his deal? “Lots.” he said, shortly. 

“Oh really? Could you eat a triple-decker hamburger and still be able to eat more?” asked Marui, with a challenging look in his eyes. 

“I’m a teenage boy, I could eat five triple-decker hamburgers and still be hungry.” said Echizen, with a slightly dry snort, as he tugged his hat over his face and stretched out his poor abused calves. “Who’s paying for that, though?”

“There’s this cheap all-you-can-eat place close to the train station.” Marui casually mentioned, as he rolled back his shoulders. “You have time to come out with us?”

Hadn’t he just vowed to focus on tennis and not on friends? The commute back to Tokyo took forever and he couldn’t get his usual four hours of extra practise against his father if he went out to eat with Marui. But still, the idea was tempting. “Maybe...” said Echizen, with a slight shrug.

The redhead scoffed a little. “You should. You’re new here and we barely know anything about you. And you know what, I’ll give you incentive. Jackal will pay for us.” he said, cheerfully. 

A bellowed: “I heard that, Bunta!” came from the third court in, where Jackal and Yagyuu were doing aiming practise. Marui laughed, loudly, with a slightly mischievous grin. “Jackal has a sixth sense for whenever I mooch off him. He’ll be oblivious until I mention wanting to use his money and then he’s all on edge. But seriously, he’ll pay. So you should come out with us.”

Well, how could Echizen turn down free food? “Okay.” he said, with a nod, trying to hide his smile, with little success. 

Marui grinned. “Great, I knew you’d see sense.” he said, cheerily, before the redheaded senpai swore as he glanced behind Echizen. “Oh, Sanada’s glaring, okay, I’m off to do something productive. You should too, or he’ll not hesitate to slap you. See you in the locker rooms!” he gabbled, as he jogged away, towards the courts.

Slap him? Echizen pulled a face of slight confusion, but upon turning around to see Sanada’s glare almost staring into his soul, Echizen turned around reluctantly to grab his racket and maybe start a volley practise against the wall. 

_Marui_

The thing about Echizen was that he wasn’t even arrogant, just cocky about his own skills. But he was unfailingly blunt about it, instead of presenting it cutely, like Marui did. Marui watched Echizen dance around and avoid one of the first-years who was pestering him about something to do with English, and frowned a little, as he pulled off his own shirt. “Are all you people from outside Japan like that?” he asked Jackal, who was spraying some deodorant over his sweaty shirt, 

Jackal, as his best friend since forever, didn’t even need clarification. “Mostly, yeah. It’s a huge change, you know, moving from the West to Japan. It’s a lot more open and less polite in the rest of the world. You kind of become overly polite and closed-off to compensate for it.”

Marui pulled a small face, as he buttoned up his school shirt over his still rather flat stomach. No abs yet, but then again, that took Sanada levels of dedication and Marui was not nearly that hardcore. “You were never that closed-off. Once I said that I liked your bag, you were like this lightbulb. Poof.” He made a small explosion gesture with his hands and Jackal snorted, softly. 

“He’s just introverted. I know that you aren’t used to that, with a team like ours, but it does happen.” Jackal said dryly, as he folded his shirt haphazardly and shoved it into his locker. 

“Renji’s introverted.” pointed out, Marui, with a shrug. “But even he’s not like Echizen.”

“He’s closer in temperament to Echizen than to either of us.” said Jackal, as he tied up his shoes, one-handed. “Look, we can’t make him open up to us. I know you’re used to things working out for you like that, but all we can do is extend a hand. He has to take it.”

Kirihara jogged in at that moment, interrupting Marui’s retort and he collapsed against the bench, panting loudly. “I don’t want to run anymore, senpai.” whined Kirihara and Marui laughed. 

“Then don’t get caught slacking off, moron.” he said, fondly. “Hurry up and get dressed, Jackal’s treating us at that all-you-can-eat place.”

Jackal glared and made a motion to kick Marui, though his foot never actually connected, which was typical for Jackal and how Marui knew that Jackal didn’t really mind, so much. “Stop volunteering more people to come along that I need to pay for.” Jackal demanded, hotly and Kirihara tilted his head.

“More people?” he asked, his breath coming fast, his tongue practically drooping out of his mouth as he pulled off his shirt and shorts. “Who else’s coming? You ask Niou-senpai or something?” he asked, with a disgusted face, 

“New kid.” said Marui, gesturing his neck over to where Echizen had finished changing, and just looked a little more lost as he awkwardly took a seat on the corner of his bench and waited. He looked actually young without his hat. Marui felt the strong urge to pinch cheeks and make baby-noises to see how Echizen would react. His little brothers always hated that. 

Kirihara just pulled a face. “You suck, senpai.” he said, as he threw his sweaty pile of clothing at Marui’s head. Marui caught them and chucked them straight back at Kirihara’s head. 

“Oi, I can uninvite you anytime.” Marui said, as he rummaged for some gum in his pocket. His fatigue was starting to catch up with him and he shoved the apple-flavoured stick of sugar into his mouth and chewed vigorously. 

Jackal nodded. “Play nice, Akaya. He’s as new as you were last year.”

Kirihara scowled, and shoved his sweaty clothes into his tennis bag with more force than was strictly necessary. “He’s fucking arrogant and a pain in the neck. Nothing like me last year. I was actually likeable.” He was definitely pouting though and Marui knew that Kirihara was just sour about his loss. “It’s not like we need another player anyway, what do we do when buchou comes back, huh?” asked Kirihara, crossing his bare arms across his chest. 

“Renji and Sanada know what they’re doing. Sides, we need new talent for when we all leave. If you’re the only person with experience left on the team, who’s going to be your vice-captain, huh?” Marui said, cheerfully, as he poked Kirihara’s cheek. “Now stop being a sulking baby and come out for some free food.”

“I don’t _want_ him as a vice-captain...” muttered Kirihara, his eyes flashing a little red, but he seemed to get out his anger as he slammed his locker door and haphazardly slung his tie around his neck. No red-eyes, luckily. Maybe Marui had just imagined it. 

“Alright.” said Marui, as he slung an arm around Kirihara’s shoulder and used to other to pull up Echizen as they walked by him. “Let’s go!”

It was a slightly tense silence as they walked away from Rikkai and Marui broke it, as he blew a large bubble and popped it expertly, without a single sticky remnant left on his face. “Okay, we can’t go like this.” he said, quickly, as he removed his arms from both of their younger members. Echizen looked somewhat confused, as if he hadn’t realized something was wrong and Kirihara just scowled further. 

“Echizen Ryoma, this is Kirihara Akaya, our ace and a little pouting brat who’s very cute when he tries to be.” said Marui, taking on the ickle-baby voice, that always got a disgruntled reaction from Kirihara. True to form, Kirihara spluttered and pushed Marui to the side, with force and a slightly red flush on his cheeks.

“I’m not fucking cute!” he protested, and Echizen smirked lightly, though it was only momentarily present on his face. 

“Kirihara Akaya, this is Echizen Ryoma, our rookie from America, who speaks english like a boss and needs to work on hiding his evil smirks.” said Marui, with an amused grin and Echizen snorted lightly there, mirth shining in his eyes. 

“Now shake hands and play nice.” added Jackal, with a serious expression on his face. “I know that Muga was disorienting for both of you, but the outcome of the match shouldn’t affect your friendship. Like it or not, we’re teammates now.”

Kirihara frowned and crossed his arms across his chest. Echizen just tossed Jackal an unimpressed look, which clearly read something like ‘you really want to treat us like elementary-school children?’ Jackal sighed and Marui just blew another bubble. Jackal was great, but he didn’t know how to deal with arguments properly. Honestly, if they had red-hair, they would practically be his little brothers. 

“Stop being an idiot, Akaya, Echizen. Once we get to doubles practise, you’re going to need to be able to play doubles with everyone. Renji’ll start switching up our lineup again, soon.” he said, with a roll of his eyes. “If you lose because of something as petty as this, Sanada will make you both run like five hundred laps and slap you. So make an effort.”

Kirihara’s expression still looked disdainful, but he held out his hand to Echizen anyway. Echizen shook it and they both quickly dropped contact, looking away from each other’s glances. Marui tossed a slightly exasperated look to Jackal, who just gave him a commiserating look. “Alright, so spill your guts, Echizen. Whatcha think of Japan so far?”

Echizen shrugged. “‘S hot.” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Warmer than California.”

“Really?” asked Kirihara, instantly, looking weirded-out. “But isn’t it like always sunny there?”

Echizen rolled his eyes. “It’s like a desert in California. Japan’s so humid that I could trap some air in a glass and make a cup of tea from the water I’d get.” he said, dryly and Marui laughed, almost spitting out his gum in the process. Damn, the kid was snarky. 

“Is that why you have such lousy stamina?” asked Kirihara, with a sharp, cutting smirk, as he draped his arm around Echizen’s shoulder with an unkind look, “I thought it was just natural.”

“Is the weather why your brain is constantly addled? I thought your mum dropped you on your head when you were a baby.” retorted Echizen instantly and all of them laughed, even Kirihara, though Kirihara’s laughter was more grudging than anything. 

“Ehh, you’ll get used to it eventually.” said Jackal, easily, with a slightly amused smirk. “I thought Japan was like coming to the Arctic after Brazil.”

“He still dresses up like an Eskimo in winter, don’t be fooled.” said Marui, in a loud stage whisper. “You never get used to it. Never.”

Echizen smiled, genuinely, as they neared the train station and Marui thought it was a start. You couldn’t move mountains or coax unwilling participants out of their shells so easily, but it was a start and Marui was determined to make the smaller boy feel welcome at Rikkai.

Sometimes everyone forgot that people needed friendship and stuff, in all of their intense ambition here. “Alright, now for the important stuff. How much is your allowance?” he asked, teasingly, and all of them ended up laughing racously in the entrance to the all-you-could-eat ramen shop. 

_Echizen_

After the meeting, Echizen found out that Marui was a regular at the all-you-could-eat place and that they hated him a lot for cleaning them out of stock, at times. He found out that Kirihara’s English grades were abysmal and he found out that Jackal and Marui were both from the same elementary school, and had known each other for a long time. He also found out that Jackal’s dad ran a ramen restaurant that was a frequent meeting place for most of the regulars and that Marui had two little brothers that he fondly declared “are just like you and Akaya”, which had gained a commiseratingly disgusted look from Kirihara. 

Echizen didn’t think he’d had that much fun outside of tennis since he’d come to Japan, and it sort of felt good, in a way. He’d always been sort of popular in America, so it was weird being in Rikkai and having only a few friends in his year, just the ones whom he studied with at lunch, when he wasn’t napping in his classroom. It was getting back to the norm to have more people around him.

The food-meeting might have set him back a couple of hours for his train back to Tokyo, but by the end of it, Kirihara was smiling at him properly and instead of sulking at him, had just told Echizen to watch out, because he’d never be able to defeat the other senpai that easily and that Kirihara was taking it easy anyway. Echizen had smirked at him, and promptly had his hat stolen until Marui had tickled Kirihara out of breath, so he would return the hat. 

It was with a smile on his face that he returned back to his house, and let Karupin meow around his feet, as he attempted to switch his tennis shoes for his house slippers. “Oi, is that you, boya?” asked a voice from the kitchen and Echizen walked in, dumping his schoolbag by the dishwasher. As expected, his father’s feet were propped up on the table, as he read a huge newspaper. “You’re late, you know. Our sweet Nanako-chan was on the verge of tears a couple of minutes ago because she thought you’d been kidnapped.”

Echizen just rolled his eyes. Nanako was much more level-headed than any of the other Echizens and if she’d really been panicked, she would have called Echizen’s phone. “Mom doesn’t like it when you do that to the table.” said Echizen, quietly, as he took a bottle of milk from the fridge, as prescribed by Yanagi-senpai. Three bottles a day, it was nearly impossible to do, but somehow, even his father seemed to agree with the unreasonable request. Probably only because he wanted to be contradictory to whatever Echizen wanted. 

“Did you finally go out with your friends then, huh?” asked his father, as he put the paper down and linked his hands behind his head, not removing his feet from the table. If Mom had been around, he wouldn’t have dared to do something like that even if she was at work, and the thought made Echizen scowl. “If you’d gone to Seigaku, you’d have had friends from the first day.”

Echizen slammed the fridge door shut. He didn’t want to have this conversation. He emptied his bento boxes in the sink as he finished his milk and rinsed that glass as well. “Ahhh, don’t ignore me, boya! I’m your father, you’ve got to listen to me.” his father said, sounding slightly frustrated. 

Echizen didn’t respond until the last of the dishes were clean, before he shook off his wet hands and turned to his father. “Play a game with me, oyaji.” he said, ignoring the ache in his calves from his too-long run and his shoulders from the consecutive days of intense games. 

His father didn’t look too happy as he eyed over Echizen. “No.” he said, sounding petulant, shutting his eyes. “Go finish your homework, you probably have lots of it.”

Echizen didn’t move from his place. “Oyaji.” he said, loudly. In response, his father just hummed loudly, first in some temple songs, and then the jingles from the television advertisements. Echizen clicked his tongue, making an expression of disgust. “I went out with my tennis club senpai, since I got on the regulars team, the day before. We went to an all-you-can-eat ramen place, so I don’t need any dinner. And I finished my homework on the train as per usual. Just play me.” he railed off, in as monotone a way as he could. 

Somehow, this seemed to improve his father’s mood a little, as he stopped humming, just looked at Echizen expectantly for more information. Echizen rolled his eyes, but obliged. “Which senpai dropped me off yesterday?” he asked. 

“Two tall ones. Black hair and grumpy, and then brown hair and smiley.” said his father, cheerfully and Echizen nodded. “I beat brown-hair 7-5 to get onto the regulars. And then I thrashed Kirihara-senpai yesterday. Today, he and a couple of others took me out for food. Can we play now, please?”

His father seemed content enough by this, as he bounced up from his chair and grinned. “Ready to be beaten, boya? You shouldn’t get cocky just because you can beat a bunch of people playing kid’s tennis. You’re nothing yet~”

Echizen just gave him a determined glare and pulled his racket bag from his pile of stuff in the corner of the kitchen. He was definitely going to be able to win like this!

Three hours later, Echizen lay back spread-eagled against the dust court, feeling his breath wrack his body. He’d gotten three consecutive points, before oyaji had smashed him down, like a bug. But that was the most he’d ever managed to get from his father. He grinned, tiredly. He’d known that going to Rikkai had been a good idea. 

His father looked displeased, however, as he looked down at Echizen. “You’ve got a long way to go, boya.” he said, with a frown. “This saturday, you’re going to be coaching the granddaughter of an old friend of mine, in tennis.”

“Yadda.” said Echizen, shutting his eyes from having to see the face of his father. He had better things to be doing with his saturdays than coaching someone else in tennis. He could be practising his own in a street-court somewhere!

“She’s going to feed you. And I’ve already said that you would. What have you got on that day, anyway?” said his father, as his voice got a little further away and Echizen’s fluttered open to glance at the orange sky. Well, his father was right. He didn’t have anything planned for Saturday, but it didn’t mean that he wanted to spend it coaching some newbie either! With a groan, Echizen placed an arm over his eyes and breathed, carefully, feeling the chill breeze set in as the sun went away. Then, he pulled himself up to go take a bath and loosen up his muscles. 

In the bath, he spent his time thinking and wondering about the club, as Karupin curled up on his shoulders, purring away contentedly. _In Seigaku you would have made friends on the first day._ Probably right, if his father’s long tales about his glory days were really accurate. But he had to think about whether he’d actually wanted friends among his tennis club senpais or even in daily life. 

He’d seen the looks on people’s faces when they looked at successful people, and it wasn’t a good one. Was it worth making a friend, outperforming them, and then seeing the looks on their face turn to hatred or jealousy? Echizen wasn’t interested in pretending he was anything but stellar. That was encouraged in a place like Rikkai, but to make friends was to leave himself vulnerable here. 

Still...he’d enjoyed his afternoon with Jackal-senpai, Marui-senpai and Kirihara-senpai. Sitting and snarking with them, eating far too much and laughing together about how uptight Sanada-fukubuchou was, had been fun and Echizen did want more of that. But it was a casual friendship. So he didn’t have to try too hard or open up too much anyway, not if he stuck to smaller bonds. Easy.

Stay friendly enough with his senpai to make life easy, and not get too attached. Then go onto defeat all of the japanese tennis players, so he could satisfy his father and focus on defeating the real opponent here. Karupin purred softly as she whacked his arm with her tail, and Echizen just pulled a face at her. Yes yes, she disapproved, but tough luck. It was the best plan he could see.


	3. Chapter 3

_Sanada_

The beeping was getting to Sanada and he’d only been in his friend’s room for two hours. He didn’t know how Yukimura managed most days, sitting here connected to this life machine, watching just the white walls and wallowing in his own thoughts. Yukimura was truly stronger than him, if he could stay even a shadow of his former self, in a place like this. 

He watched Yukimura’s wan face, with a sigh to himself. He had a billion other things to be doing, like kendo practise, his endless maths homework or even some tennis practise of his own, but he couldn’t tear himself away from Yukimura’s bedside, not since the teen had fallen into a practical coma since late Thursday night. It was Saturday now, and if Yukimura didn’t wake up now, the doctors would say that he was in an actual coma, and not just in a deep sleep from mental exhaustion. 

Sanada needed Yukimura to wake up now, today and he was going to sit here all day if he had to. His stuff was here, so Sanada _could_ finish some of his homework while sitting here and waiting, but so far, he hadn’t even gotten close to touching it. Too many thoughts in his head, and every last one about Yukimura and tennis. 

At least, when they weren’t about how annoying the consistent beeping wa-- was it speeding up? Sanada stood up and pressed the help button, as the heartrate spiked up a little and Yukimura’s breathing started to get a little uneven. Was he waking up? A nurse walked in quickly and smiled a little at Sanada, before she went over to Yukimura and bustled over him a little. He heard a gasp of air from his friend and the nurse talked to him, quietly and briskly, as he checked his pulse and his blood pressure. 

Finally, the nurse stopped talking to Yukimura and left the room, giving Sanada a nod of confirmation that he was okay. Sanada felt his shoulders sag in relief, and he pulled his chair up to Yukimura’s bed, until they were almost touching. Yukimura gave him a weak smile as he slowly blinked himself awake a bit more.

“Help m-me up?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and cracking in the middle of his sentence. “Fingers not working yet.”

Sanada nodded, and pulled the pillow up and carefully helped Yukimura adjust to being in a slightly more upright position. Yukimura’s breath was a little more shallow by the time that Sanada finished, but his skin was regaining a little colour. “How long--?”

“Three days. Today’s Saturday.” said Sanada, quietly. “Any longer and they said that you would have been classified as a coma.”

Yukimura’s face was uneasy as he glanced at Sanada and the large amount of his stuff in the corner of the room. “And how long have you been waiting here?” he asked, his voice getting stronger with every word spoken. 

“Just two hours today. But Renji and I were here last night, until the hospital’s closing hours. And your father and sister were here this morning.” explained Sanada, calmly, as he indicated to the small pot of flowers that Yukimura’s younger sister had picked out and left for him. Yukimura’s gaze drifted to them and softened a little. His family rarely visited, but he seemed to relish their visits when they did manage to make it. 

“I haven’t seen you since Monday, right?” asked Yukimura, softly. “How is your family?”

“Well enough. My mother says that you should focus on getting better soon so she can cook an entire buffet for you.” relayed Sanada, with a slight smile touching his lips, and Yukimura laughed, softly and quietly. His mother loved Yukimura like her own son. 

With a little experiment on the movement of his wrists, Yukimura smiled, delicately. “Tell her I’m trying. But it’s not easy.”

Sanada just nodded and glanced down at his lap, unable to speak around the sudden lump in his throat at the regretful look on Yukimura’s face. He’d slowly been deteriorating for eight months, and this was the closest that Sanada had gotten to the scare of death coming Yukimura’s way. “Renji thought it would last for three weeks.” he said, quietly. “But I knew...”

“Kindly tell Renji that I’m not dead yet.” said Yukimura, with a sharply displeased tone to his words.

“You’re not dying at all!” snapped Sanada, looking up to meet Yukimura’s gaze. They stared at each other for a long moment, before Yukimura’s lips twitched and his papery skin crinkled into a wide smile. 

“Honestly Sanada, sometimes you’d think that you were the one dying, with the way you keep on.” he said, fondly. But before Sanada could once again insist that Yukimura wasn’t dying and that he couldn’t even believe it for a minute, Yukimura forged on. “Tell me what happened at Rikkai. You had the challenges this week, didn’t you? Anyone promising?”

Sanada dropped the topic of death a little reluctantly, and nodded. “More than promise, we have someone for the reserve position now. One of the first years managed to beat Renji in a match.”

Yukimura’s eyebrows rose and he looked thoughtful, as his hands came up to brush his hair back behind his ear. “Renji playing his best or...?”

“Not his best, no.” Sanada said, with a nod. Yanagi definitely hadn’t been trying his hardest, with his power-weights still on and his calm undisturbed, except for the one revelation of Echizen being ambidextrous. “But Renji believes that Echizen can be better than Renji’s best, by the time we get to Kanto. He already had the regulars jacket prepared for a week and a half in advance.”

“That’s what Renji thinks. What do you think?” said Yukimura shrewdly cutting to the heart of the matter, as ever. Sanada sometimes envied him this ability; Sanada could usually sense that something was wrong with his friends, but he wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it, not like Yukimura. 

Sanada folded his hands together and leant back. “He’s strong, no doubt about it. Whether he’s _that_ strong remains to be seen, but he played Akaya the day after challenges and managed to push both of them into Muga.” Yukimura’s eyebrows rose again, looking a mixture of pleased and concerned. “Echizen won.” clarified Sanada, with a significant look. Akaya was a very strong player in their team, despite being their youngest, and for Echizen to beat him as a first year in a state of total abandon, indicated a lot of strength.

“But...?” asked Yukimura, with a light smile, despite his eyes being a little distant. 

“Renji brings up a point that he plays exactly like Samurai Nanjirou.” said Sanada. “He’ll win matches, but he won’t grow.”

Yukimura nodded, slowly, his eyes clearly somewhere else as he pushed through his thoughts. Sanada paused, and waited, despite wanting to add on his other misgivings. His captain wasn’t listening anymore. “Of course, someone who always wins will not be able to grow well and disregard a playstyle that is like a crutch.” murmured Yukimura. “Echizen is useful. He’s already managed to push Akaya more than the three of us ever could. If Akaya follows Muga, he could very well turn around his play style altogether. I think we owe it to Echizen to correct his habits as well.”

Sanada swallowed his protest about it wasting their time when their only goal was to win. Instead, he just tightened his jaw and nodded, stiffly. “So what?” he asked, stiffly. 

“Play him with your power wrists still on and without using Fuurinkaazan. Crush him, entirely. Don’t let him get a single point. Let him see how far he has yet to go. He’ll be forced to discard the moves that are not his own.” Yukimura commanded, coldly. Sanada could feel the implication. Crush him like they had crushed Akaya, in front of everyone. 

But Echizen wasn’t Akaya and Sanada mused that if his orders were to fix Echizen’s playstyle to reflect Echizen’s personality and not his father’s personality, it wouldn’t be by pushing him down Akaya’s path. No, he would play and crush Echizen quietly. The boy had enough drive to be able to push himself without outside gaze. 

Sanada nodded, quietly, and from Yukimura’s slightly narrowed gaze, he could tell that Sanada was thinking something else. Still, he didn’t comment on it. “Was Echizen and Akaya’s attainment of Muga the only news?”

Sanada shook his head. “Niou’s forehand isn’t increasing as well as Renji was expecting. I think he may have to avoid singles again for Districts.” Yukimura looked set to say something, but remembering Yanagi’s words a little too late, Sanada cut over him. “I’m planning to mix around all of the doubles combinations once more, see who else is compatible with Niou other than just Yagyuu, who is an adept singles player.”

Looking a little displeased at the cutoff, Yukimura nodded. “Throw in Echizen and Akaya there. Mix things up a little and test them out at Districts.” he said, with a nod. “But make sure the boya has at least one vaguely challenging match against someone and tape it for me?” he asked, and there was something slightly wistful in his tone, so Sanada couldn’t try to argue. He’d just write himself out of some of the lineups, if necessary. Districts were always their experiments with strange combinations to see how well they worked anyway, since Districts were never a problem for anyone. 

“I’ll ask a pre-regular to film something.” confirmed Sanada as he reached forward for Yukimura’s hand to try and wipe the wistfulness from Yukimura’s eyes. He almost preferred it when Yukimura was angry. Yukimura clasped it, gently. Rather than clammy like Sanada had been expecting, his hand was cold and felt too soft under Sanada’s rough skin. None of the callouses caused by long hours under the sun, where they pushed themselves to the limit. 

“Thank you, Sanada.” he said, softly. “I am sorry for being a burden.” Before Sanada could deny it, Yukimura squeezed his hand and just smiled sadly, as he pushed himself towards Sanada with some difficulty.

“You haven’t slept for more than five hours consecutively in over a month. And you look terrible, honestly, like you aged fifty years. Renji tells me things, you know. And I know that I placed a heavy burden on your shoulders, and I am truly sorry. Even if it doesn’t always seem like it. And I am grateful that you are here by my si--”

“Stop sounding like you’re writing your will.” said Sanada, coldly cutting him off, unable to hear anymore. “I’m only temporarily holding this post for you. Apologize when you return to us. And make sure that you do return to us.” Before he could convince himself it was a bad idea, he kissed the top of their clasped hands, before dropping Yukimura’s hand and standing up. 

Yukimura drew his hand back, with a little regret, but just nodded. “Call my father and tell him that I’m alright? He doesn’t need to worry.”

Sanada nodded, as he grabbed his stuff from the side of the room. “I will. I’ll tell Renji to drop by soon as well. Rest well, Yukimura.”

_Echizen_

His muscles ached by the time that Echizen returned to school, though it certainly wasn’t because of one Ryuuzaki Sakuno. He did spend most of the day bemoaning the time he had to waste on her, however, which made him quite irritable through the day’s lessons. He didn’t know it was possible for anyone to be that bad at tennis. Or blush that much, now he was thinking about it. 

He didn’t understand girls. Really, he didn’t. He didn’t know why his father had been so gleeful about the whole thing, either. Like he was ever going to do what his father had done. He was going further than his father had ever been able to. That was why he was at Rikkai: to surpass what his father had achieved, and he didn’t have time for pretty, blushing girls who couldn’t play a lick of tennis properly because of wobbly hips. 

He walked into the locker rooms, feeling distinctly annoyed and tired. Apparently, everyone else wasn’t, as it was quite lively and loud. Yanagi-senpai had told him before he’d left on Friday that he had a new locker next to the regulars, which meant that he had to listen to Marui and Jackal talk animatedly about the singing TV show and how the winner of the round hadn’t deserved it. 

“Tell me I’m right, Echizen! You watch it, right?” demanded Marui, as he pulled his shirt over his head. “The Rogues didn’t deserve their victory today!”

Echizen shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t watch it.” he said, as he started to unbutton his shirt. 

“You not into it, or not get the time?” asked Jackal, curiously. Echizen shrugged again. It really wasn’t his thing, as he preferred to watch tennis rewatches or play video games, but considering it was popular here, it probably wouldn’t be good to say that he disliked it. 

“No time. Was too busy finishing homework, because I had to coach someone earlier in the day.” said Echizen, distinctly grumpy.

Jackal seemed content to leave it there, but Marui gave him a deep stare, squinting his eyes comically and tilting his head sideways. “That’s not the only part of this. There was a GIRL involved, wasn’t there?” he demanded and Jackal sighed, softly and with exasperation. 

Niou’s head popped out from behind Jackal, despite being half dressed. “Surely no girl is dumb enough to date Bun-face?” he said, looking very creepy all of a sudden. Yagyuu rolled his eyes from where he was undoing his tie. Echizen quickly finished unbuttoning his shirt and quickly shoved on his puke-yellow regulars shirt, feeling shivers go down his spine at that smile. 

“Not me, Echizen. His weekend definitely involved girls, look at that face.” said Marui, with an amused grin, as Echizen turned around to face his locker, resolutely. This was bad enough from his father. Not his senpai too. 

He felt two hands on his shoulder and both Niou and Marui were grinning rather unpleasantly as they turned him around. “Spill.” said Marui, happily and Niou’s eyes seemed very white today. Echizen tugged his hat over his eyes. “Was tutoring Seigaku’s coach’s daughter. She sucks at tennis. It was a waste of time and boring too. That’s it.” he said, with a shrug. As few details as possible was always best. 

Marui looked satisfied, but Niou seemed set to ask about more things, when the door slammed as Sanada stalked into the room. He glanced up at the board, frowned and stood up on a chair. “50 laps! Get started, immediately! No lollygagging!”

All of the regulars exchanged glances and started getting dressed faster. Niou scowled. “What’s his problem?” he muttered, darkly. 

Yagyuu leant over, on the pretence of tying his shoelaces. “The headmaster called him out of the Morality Council meeting today. I presume to talk about the prospects of the team without Yukimura-kun.”

Niou pulled a face in response. “No wonder he’s got his panties in a bunch.”

Echizen didn’t think he’d been very open with his facial expressions of confusion, but Yagyuu seemed to have noticed it and explained quietly. “Our headmaster is accustomed to success. Rikkai have been a nationally ranked tennis team for fifteen years, but since Yukimura-kun took control of the Rikkai team, we’ve been winning nationals, with impressive records being broken along the way. Since Yukimura-kun is in the hospital, evidently, our headmaster is worried about whether our team will be able to keep up that winning streak without Yukimura-kun.”

“We definitely can!” burst out Kirihara, whom, up until then, had been rather silent, as he’d listened to the conversation. However, his cry drew attention to the regulars and Sanada glared at those who were already dressed. “Go and run! Extra ten laps for all of you!” he said, furiously and all of the Regulars bolted out of the locker room, dressed or not. 

Echizen slotted his arms into his jersey with difficulty as they all clattered down the stairs out of the locker room and down towards the courts. Jackal just threw a worried glance towards the locker rooms, but turned his attention back to the regulars, as they all took the laps at jogging speed. Echizen just focused on getting his feet to go into autopilot, before he spoke up.

“You said that Rikkai wasn’t always a winner?” asked Echizen, quietly, as they passed a couple of struggling pre-regulars who’d set a too fast pace. “Who used to win before us?”

“All sorts of schools.” said Yagyuu, calmly. “There was no one team that had pure domination like Rikkai have been achieving these past two years.” Interesting. 

‘So we’re the best now?” Echizen asked, darting ahead of Kirihara’s elbows, as he attempted to avoid Niou’s attempts to do something to his hair. 

“Some of the best.” hedged Yagyuu and Jackal shrugged, as he took over, his breath obviously more stable than even Yagyuu’s. 

“According to the official rankings, Number One in the tennis world this year is Sanada.” he said, indicating his head over to where Sanada was glaring at their slow pace, but surprisingly not commenting. “But everyone knows that’s not accurate. The two top players are Yukimura-buchou and Tezuka from Seigaku.”

Seigaku again. Echizen wondered briefly what it might have been to go there, but still, when Rikkai had both Yukimura and Sanada, why would he ever want to go elsewhere? Echizen nodded, contemplatively and was about to ask something when Marui cut in. “Nobody knows who’s better out of the two. They’ve never played a match and don’t seem to plan on one either. It’s frustrating to everyone.” 

“Buchou would totally win.” said Kirihara, shaking his head, arrogantly. “Buchou’s the best.”

Niou shrugged, as he moved up to Yagyuu’s side. “Dunno. I asked the boss myself, and he said he wasn’t sure, though he mighta been being modest. Whatever order it actually is, there’s something about Tezuka that makes half the tennis world wanna play him. You included, might I add, Bakaya.”

“Don’t CALL me that!” yelled Kirihara, gaining a glare from Sanada. He looked a little sheepish and turned back to Echizen. “Tezuka-san’s cool and all, but there are a tonne of other people that are pretty big names too. Atobe-san from Hyotei, he and Sanada-fukubuchou have this huge rivalry that Yanagi-senpai finds really funny. And then Shiraishi-san from Shitenhouji, even though nobody’s really seen him play, buchou keeps saying that we all ought to watch out for him.”

“Not to mention Tachibana. They found him over at Fudomine this year, wouldja believe? Just ditched someplace like Shishigaku for a no-name school in Tokyo.” Marui said, sounding a bit amused. “Still, Shishigaku are lost without him and Chitose, they definitely aren’t a team we’ll see at Nationals.”

Echizen just nodded. The names didn’t really have any meaning to him, and he was sure that he could beat them all. But it was good to know that he had opponents here. It was good practise for defeating his ultimate goal. 

The conversation continued, as they discussed the likelihood of Oshitaris creeping each other out, or even something about Sengoku and flirting. They teased Marui a little about Akutagawa, and Marui looked very pleased about his supposed fanboy, but since the names were just names, Echizen focused more on running and keeping his breathing even. He really needed to do more running in his free time, but he was always going to be partial to playing actual tennis instead of focusing on stamina. 

One foot after another. His mind centred down in concentration to just his feet, even as the others went away again, to go do their own individual practise, Echizen just kept running. Finally, as the pre-regulars made their way back to the locker-rooms, Echizen drew to a stop and stretched out his aching calves, taking especial care to place emphasis on his rear, after finding out the hard way over the weekend, that too much running wasn’t good for the muscles there. 

Kirihara and Jackal were loudly talking about something as they went to the lockers and Echizen thought he’d maybe ask them about whether they knew something about the music that the people in his class had been talking about when he noticed that Sanada was standing behind him. Echizen stopped stretching and gave Sanada a stare.

“What?” he asked. 

“Have you any other commitments today?” asked Sanada, curtly, his arms tightened across his chest. 

Echizen just tugged at his head. “Not really.” he said, evasively. If it was for extra training, he kind of wanted to go home and finish his homework and take a long bath. But if it was for something else, it was worth not outrightly turning it down. 

“Good.” said Sanada, turning around. “Meet me outside the gates in fifteen minutes.” he commanded, with the order evident in his voice and no other details. Echizen just gave Sanada a quizzical look, before sighing and following him to the locker rooms, so he could change to his other tennis clothes.

Ten minutes later, Echizen leant back against the gate, having turned down Jackal’s offer to walk him to the train station, waiting instead for Sanada. He’d texted his dad telling him that he’d be late home, and promptly turned off his phone, wanting to avoid the melodramatic phone-call he’d get about ‘his bouya becoming a proper teenager’. Nanako would hopefully disabuse him of being weird _all_ the time, since she had experience with being a teenager, but then again, that might have been expecting too much. 

Finally, Sanada came out of the school, hat over his head, and the thick chain of keys in hand. “Have you told your parents that you will be home late?” asked Sanada, sternly, as he beckoned Echizen to follow him. When Echizen nodded, Sanada looked a little more pleased, if the lessening of frown-lines was any indication. “Renji said that the last of the trains go home at 8, but I think you will be able to get back home before then.”

Echizen’s eyes went up to Sanada’s face again and shrugged upon seeing nothing useful. “Extra training?” he asked, evenly. 

“A match against me.” said Sanada, coolly and Echizen couldn’t help but perk up a little at that chance. He’d heard the rumours about Sanada’s playstyle since he’d arrived at Rikkai, and after hearing the other regulars saying that Sanada was the current number one of the tennis courts, Echizen could maybe achieve his goal tonight itself. 

“Are you healed from your match from Akaya?” asked Sanada, looking him over and Echizen nodded. His stomach still had some unpleasantly yellow bruises, but the scrapes had all mostly gone away, or were healed to the point where they weren’t a trouble to him anymore. 

“Don’t hold back.” said Echizen, as they approached a mostly deserted court and Sanada removed his jacket and bags by the side-bench. 

“It depends whether you can keep up with me when I’m holding back.” said Sanada, coolly, as he removed and re-adjusted his hat over his hair. 

Echizen scoffed, lightly, as he leant back on his racket. “I’m going to beat you.” he said, easily. 

Two hours later, as he was kneeling on the dusty court, his breath was ragged and angry. Despite playing some of the best moves he knew at the beginning of the match, they were all swallowed by Sanada’s defence and this time, there had been no stopping the uncertain thoughts about whether he would ever be able to defeat Sanada. In the end, he’d self-destructed, with too many unforced errors.

Somehow, he’d managed to hit Muga again for the ending of the match, but it hadn’t stopped him from still losing miserably to Sanada’s skills. The insulting part was that the taller teen hadn’t removed his weights at all, for the whole match. 

Still, there was a grudgingly impressed look on Sanada’s face as he offered Echizen a hand up and clapped his shoulder. “Your potential is there. But don’t get too cocky. You’re no way near the top of the tennis world. Find your own way of playing tennis, then play me again. I think we’ll both enjoy it more.” he said, seriously. There was no rebuke or approval in his voice, just serious contemplation and Echizen appreciated that. 

“Fine.” he said, his voice ragged and tired. His father had always been the end goal. He’d never expected to be _crushed_ like this, by someone else his age. 

“Do you need me to walk you home?” asked Sanada, taking note of how shaky Echizen’s feet were. Echizen instantly shook his head no, as he grabbed his bag and forced himself to channel his energy into his feet. Walking straight. One step after another. See, he could walk!

Sanada looked unconvinced, but just nodded and left the courts, walking away from the direction to the train station. As soon as he disappeared, Echizen frowned at his feet and slumped down against the wall. What did he do now? He hadn’t been able to defeat Sanada, no matter what he’d done. 

If he couldn’t even defeat ‘kid’s tennis’, how was he even supposed to get close to his father’s level? He tipped his head back and exhaled shakily, feeling the shame of losing and the tightness that came from not cooling down properly, spread through his body. He didn’t want to get up and go home. His father would know, from the moment he walked through the door. And Echizen didn’t want that shame, knowing that he’d chosen wrong with Rikkai.

He contemplated picking up his phone and telling his father that he would be out for a lot longer, but decided against it as his phone powered up. As expected, the phone had a lot of missed calls and texts from his father, but one thing surprising was his mother’s phone number in the missed calls list. Wasn’t it expensive to call from America?

Echizen glanced down at the number for some time, before dialing the number and sticking the phone against his ear, as he pulled his legs closer to his chest, protecting the area which was still bruised. The number didn’t ring for long before his mother picked up. 

“This is Echizen Rinko speaking, who is this?” she asked, forgetting that Caller ID existed, probably. 

“Hey mom.” said Echizen, as he shut his eyes and spoke english, with a grateful ease. His mother was up late, huh? In California, it was going to be 2 in the morning. He wondered whether the case she was working on was tough. 

“Ryoma.” she said, her professional tone dropping in an instant and Echizen couldn't help but smile as she hummed, happily. “I’m sorry, I called you a little earlier, but I forgot, you’d be at practise. I’m not interrupting from anything, am I?”

“No, no. How’s it going, mom?” asked Echizen, feeling overly emotional to hear her voice after some time. 

“Not bad, not bad. The case is a little tougher than usual, some child kidnapper who’s disgustingly good at covering his tracks. I’ll convict him, though, it’s just more difficult than imagined. But you shouldn’t worry about it. I just wanted to know how you’re doing. How are you settling in? Nanjirou fills me in, but sometimes I just want to hear it from your voice.” she said, softly, with a tenderness she only really reserved for him. 

“I’m...I’m fine, mom.” said Echizen, swallowing the lump in his throat. “It’s...it’s doing great.”

“It doesn’t quite sound like that, huh?” she asked, her tone slightly amused. “You can tell me anything, you know?”

“Yeah...” trailed off Echizen, as he tugged his cap over his face. “...I really miss you, mom. I wish you’d hurry up and find a law firm here!” he said, all in a burst, which was more than he’d ever really said to her about his feelings about coming to Japan without his mother. Generally, he never protested the executive decisions taken by his mother about the family, because he knew that it didn’t really matter as long as he could play tennis. Still, he missed her. 

“My baby, I know. Oh, I know. I miss you and Nanjirou ever so much. It’s not so easy to just leave, though. Lots of unresolved ends to resolve here before I can come over.” she said, softly. “But you understand why I told you and your father to go over without me, don’t you?”

“Yeah...” He’d known the reasons. Getting into middle-school at the same time as everyone else, and not having to struggle with the process of getting a solid base of friends and contacts before things got crucial for his future. Utilizing his dual-citizenship and dual-residence in both the US and Japan to help his professional tennis contacts and sponsors. He knew the logical reasons for them leaving without his mother. But things were just a little too raw right now.

“Just remember I love you dearly, every day.” she said, softly and Echizen smiled softly down at his lap. 

“Hey mum...have you ever lost a case? One that you really wanted to win?” he asked, not caring if he was being open about what had happened. He never felt the need to preserve his pride with his mother. There was no competition there, after all. 

His mother was quiet for a long time, long enough that Echizen wondered if she’d hung up the phone, disgusted by his loss. “Sorry darling,” she said, finally. “I just needed to write something down. Yes, I have. There was this one case. There was a husband who’d attempted to kill his wife, after years of resentment at her having a better job than he did. He failed, but she was landed into hospital for almost ten months. Her sister begged me to prosecute against him, because there was so little evidence that he actually attempted to kill her, except the wife’s testimony.”

“And he didn’t go to prison?” asked Echizen, his mouth pulling down at the edges. 

“He didn’t even spend a single hour in a jail cell.” she confirmed, her voice solemn. “The courts also refused to terminate their marriage. So she is still married to him, though she lives with her sister now.”

“And what did you do about it?” asked Echizen, his voice a little shaky. 

“Nothing. The case was shut. I moved on. And I made sure to do better on my next cases, to tirelessly work until every piece of evidence was brought to light.” she said, softly, her voice slightly stern. “You can’t dwell on loss, you see, my darling. The world isn’t fair and you cannot always win. Besides, justice will usually out. A year later, he came in for charges of child-abuse and I got him stuck in prison for twenty years. So you see, things work out, in the end. You just have to do your best until your time comes.”

Echizen laughed shakily, as he clutched the phone close to him. “You ought to tell oyaji that.” he said, with a slight grin. “He does nothing but lounge around all day.”

“Is he being annoying again? Tell him that when I come around for the holidays, I’m going to hit him with those magazines of his!” she said, playfully and Echizen joined in with her laughter.

“Did you change the way you prosecuted cases after you lost?” asked Echizen, as the laughter faded away. 

“Yes.” she said, immediately. “And change is never a bad thing, darling. It reflects how you are growing and maturing. Change everything about you and reach for the top. Don’t ever stop reaching for the top, alright?”

“Alright.” said Echizen, as his death grip on the phone loosened a little. “I miss you, mom.”

“I miss you too, darling.” his mother murmured, and Echizen said a short bye, before he ended the call and stared down at the phone. Change everything about you and reach for the top. That wasn’t going to be easy, was it? Still, he felt a little more prepared to do something like that now. His feet were more stable as he pushed himself up and walked to the train station, feeling an awful ache settle into his bones properly. 

When he arrived at home, instead of being reprimanded or even given petulant glances, his father just started grinning and whistled some cheerful songs as he attempted to make them some very late dinner. It burnt eventually, and they ended up ordered take-out sushi, but Echizen had enjoyed himself a little, while finishing his music homework and snarkily commenting on his father’s cooking style. 

It wasn’t until the next day that his father asked him, surprisingly quietly as they finished their match: “Who did you lose against, bouya?” 

Echizen paused, his shoulders shaking. His playstyle had been cautious and reserved today, as he’d tried to work with his aching limbs and the feeling of failure pressing down on him. And there was no denying that his father had known this from yesterday. “Sanada-fukubuchou.” said Echizen, not doubting that his father would remember him. Sanada wasn’t someone who was easy to forget, not like other irrelevant people. He commanded attention. 

His father nodded, looking cheerful. “Good, good. Now you see why I wanted us to come to Japan? America may look strong, but in the end, Japan has always held the titans.”

Titans? It seemed contradictory to everything that Echizen had previously believed, but Rikkai was starting to be stronger than even he’d initially evaluated them to be. 

_Sanada_

With a muffled yawn, Sanada walked into his homeroom, threw his bookbag down and buried his head in his arms. He was unbelievably tired today, after a restless night filled with nightmares. The world was literally blurring and he was seeing double, if he tried to concentrate too hard on the board. Maybe he could sleep for the next fifteen minutes. Maybe that would be enough for the rest of the day. 

“Genichirou?” asked a concerned voice that was all too familiar and Sanada suppressed his groan at that plan going out of the window. 

“I’m fine.” he said, as he pulled his head away from the dark solace. Yanagi was looking very unimpressed at his side and Sanada just glared him down. “I’m _fine_.” he insisted again. 

Yanagi just sighed as he crossed his arms across his chest. “What did the headmaster want?”

Sanada didn’t even question how Yanagi had known about him being taken from Morality Council to speak with the headmaster, he was too used to this. “Nothing too serious. Kendo club want to bring my grandfather in for a day to help oversee their preparation for Districts, and the Headmaster wanted me to take some forms home for him to fill in. Also, to sort out transport. Ojii-sama will be inside the staff-room for most of the day, since I walk home and kaa-sama is too busy with other things to be able to drive him to school before the day officially ends.”

Yanagi nodded, looking slightly amused. “I think three of our teachers play go, so he won’t be too bored. If not, our library is quite extensive as well.” 

Sanada just nodded. “Oh, and Headmaster wants the receipts for the club’s expenses this month. Apparently you didn’t fill them out?” he asked, tilting his head. It wasn’t like Yanagi to forget anything, which was why he’d been a little taken aback when the Headmaster had told him, quite curtly, of the tennis club’s mistake. 

His taller friend shook his head, looking worried. “Genichirou, I definitely filed those. I gave you the sheets to hand in last week. Ask the office to double check whether they didn’t just displace them, I definitely filed them.” he insisted and Sanada felt the blood drain from his face. 

“What file?” he asked and Yanagi’s eyebrows pulled down in incredulity. 

“Genichirou!” he exclaimed, as he pulled up Sanada’s bookbag and started rummaging through it, with the same familiarity that he flicked through his own bag. The tennis club file was neatly there, and inside, were not only the expenses for the tennis club, but the meeting minutes for Morality Council. Yanagi threw him a truly worried look and Sanada turned away from Yanagi’s face. 

“How many hours have you been sleeping on average?” demanded Yanagi. Sanada exhaled and scowled. 

“Enough.” he lied, as he grabbed his history book from his bag and snatched the file from Yanagi’s hands. He’d hand it in this lunchtime, before he went to Calligraphy Club’s meeting, and apologize profusely to the secretary. 

Yanagi’s eyes flashed open for a moment and he tossed his head back in frustration. “You’re not fine, Genichirou. You’ve never forgotten paperwork for any of the clubs. Ever. Go home and sleep.”

“I can’t, we’re receiving important information about the research project today. And we have that maths quiz. Did you study for that?” he asked, trying to divert the subject away from the eyebags which only got more prominent by the day. 

“I did, and I thought the problem-set was actually easier than I was expecti--” Yanagi broke off and clicked his tongue. It was perhaps the most frustrated that Sanada ever really seen Yanagi for a long time. Perhaps for once, Yanagi could get a taste of how irritated Sanada felt for most of the day. “Genichirou. Don’t change the subject.”

“It’s just a little hectic in May, it always is because that’s when we have the most paperwork for all of the competing clubs and most homework.” said Sanada, coolly. “Once Districts start, it’ll be a little easier, you’ll see.” At least, that was the plan. “Did Yukimura talk to you about mixing up the doubles?”

“Yes, but it always intensifies again in June.” Yanagi murmured, worriedly. “And yes, Seiichi mentioned that plan, because Niou’s forehand isn’t up to standard yet? But you wanted to throw Echizen and Akaya into the combinations as well?”

Sanada nodded, seriously. He’d actually spent a lot of time thinking about this. “Akaya wasn’t part of the team last year and neither was Echizen. I have ideas about whom Akaya would be good with in doubles. And Echizen seems like his style isn’t conducive to doubles, but even Yukimura mastered doubles after enough practise.”

“He could only play doubles with you and me.” murmured Yanagi, with a faint smile.

“Can.” corrected Sanada, fiercely. “He’s not dead yet, Renji.” he said, sharply, parroting Yukimura’s words from the hospital. Yukimura wasn’t ever going to die if Sanada had anything to say about it, but since both Yanagi and Yukimura always interrupted him when he spoke about that, he’d given up about telling them. “But anyway, I can see Echizen and Jackal working together well. You and Akaya, too. I suppose Akaya and Yagyuu would also be an acceptable combination.”

Yanagi nodded, evidently agreeing with Sanada’s suppositions. “Oh, would you happen to know why Echizen hasn’t played a single game of tennis since his match with Akaya a month ago?” he asked, sharply. 

Well, technically, that would be ‘Echizen hadn’t played since his match with Sanada’, but he was pretty sure that Yanagi could surmise that without any help. “He’ll play when told to.” said Sanada, unconcerned, as his vision started to blur a little and he squeezed his eyes together tightly. 

Yanagi exhaled lightly and squeezed Sanada’s shoulder, softly. “Genichirou, it’s not easy for any of us. Just...ask for help if it’s difficult, please.”

“It’s not a burden.” snapped Sanada, as he shrugged off Yanagi’s hand. “I can manage just fine.”

Yanagi was evidently about to reply with something cutting, but the bell rang and Yanagi reluctantly picked up his own bag and returned to his own formroom for daily registration. Sanada exhaled in relief and propped his head up to look like he was paying sufficient attention for the history lesson. Thankfully, being known as a model student was enough to get away with just nodding and looking like he was actually paying attention. 

Finally, the class bell rung, but Sanada stood up, blinking away the sleep tinging the edges of his vision as he approached his teacher. “Sensei, I had a question, about the project.” he said, politely and his teacher smiled. 

“I thought you would, Sanada-kun. I have slightly different requirements for you as far as your historical sources go. I know that I have told everyone to include at least five primary sources, but you excel at analysing information from primary sources like old books and pictures, and you hardly need more practise at that, yes?” she said, with a quirk of her eyebrows. Sanada just nodded, he was used to reading the collections and memoirs of people living at the period of time he was interested in. 

“For you, I want six secondary sources and at least two of those have to be online sources that are still reputable.” Sanada was about to protest, but she held up a hand in placation. “See, whenever we have used secondary sources, your fatal flaw manages to be that you either do not question their interpretation of events at all, or you do not accept their interpretation at all. You need to be able to strike a balance, Sanada-kun. This is what I want you to practise in the essay.”

Sanada nodded, his jaw tight with a little annoyance. He didn’t want to read other people’s interpretations of history, when he knew that his were mostly better than theirs. Still, that was why sensei even wanted to assign it, he supposed. “Yes, sensei.” he said, with a shallow bow. 

His sensei smiled, approvingly. “Good man. You’ll do fine, I’m sure. Do you have an idea of what you want to be when you are older?”

Sanada shook his head, decisively. There were far too many options for him to take. But if he was honest, he hadn’t been thinking about his distant future at all, not since Yukimura had landed in the hospital. It had always been about the next day and continuing onwards inside that day. Not about his career. He’d always thought that he and Yukimura would take the tennis world by storm, but there were other interests that he and Yukimura had found. 

“Well, when you get around to thinking about it, you’d make a fine historian. That is, once you remember to analyse historian’s works as well as you analyse primary sources. The same problems occur in both types of sources, just remember that.” she said, as she stood up. “Now, go and prepare for your next lesson, you’re a busy man.”

Sanada nodded and left, his mind running a little uneasily at her words. There it was about striking a balance again. As if it was that easy.


End file.
